A pedestrian in Tempe, Ariz., has died after being struck by a self-driving car operated by Uber. This is believed to be the first death of a pedestrian due to autonomous cars. Uber has suspended testing of the cars in the city, as well as in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Toronto.

Actor Cynthia Nixon today announced that she's going to challenge Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the primary. Current polls don't bode well for her chances.

Kroger announced it will stop carrying magazines that feature assault rifles in its stores, meaning they're essentially banning pictures of guns. One wonders what will happen to magazine sales altogether if the grocery chain discovers that many guns themselves have "magazines."

Last year, the government of French Polynesia adopted a Memorandum of Understanding that said it would look into the prospects of allowing a seastead to be built near one of its islands. "Seasteads" are artificially created island polities that can experiment with different rules and add a level of competition to government.

agreement commits the parties to "studies addressing the technical and legal feasibility of the project in French Polynesia" and to preparing a "special governing framework allowing the creation of the Floating Island Project located in an innovative special economic zone." Since the Seasteading Institute is an educational nonprofit, the signing ceremony was also the public debut of a for-profit spinoff called Blue Frontiers, which intends to build, develop, and manage the first Polynesian seastead.

Randolph Hencken, one of the principles of Blue Frontiers and the Seasteading Institute, insists that this development will not derail the movement's efforts. "French Polynesia—an archipelago of 118 islands—is one of the promising countries we are cultivating relationships with in regards to stationing seasteads," he writes.

"Some people and some politicians from the Island of Tahiti—during the election cycle—have expressed opposition," he adds. "This led to the majority party reminding people that the Memorandum of Understanding is a non-binding document and that there is not a backroom deal taking place with us. The [agreement] required us to perform environmental, economic, and legal studies—all of which we completed last year. There is no need to renew the [agreement]."

If French Polynesia doesn't work out as the site of the first functioning seastead, Hencken says, "other communities which are concerned by sea level rise have reached out to embrace our project, and many more options are also being considered. There are many locations in protected waters, in French Polynesia and other countries, that we are interested in and are building relationships with the goal of starting seasteading. We plan to take our investment, resources, and talents to one of these locations and create mutually beneficial relationships with our neighboring communities."

As Blue Frontiers' Joe Quirk, author with Patri Friedman of the definitive book on seasteading, explains in detail in a post at Medium, whether or not French Polynesia's ruling party is publicly supportive right now, many stakeholders in the island nation are still bullish on the idea.

The National Lawyers Guild refused to run a congratulatory advertisement submitted by an Israeli organization -- the organization is suing for discrimination in "public accommodations," and a New York court has let the case go forward.